BEFORE: I forgot to mention that Tom Kenny was also in the cast list for "Hotel Transylvania", listed as, umm, "other voices", and he carries over into tonight's film, where's he's listed among "angry townspeople". OK, it's a bit of a cheat since he didn't play a named character either time, but even if you don't allow me that, then Kevin James links through the film "The Dilemma" to Winona Ryder.
THE PLOT: Young Victor conducts a science experiment to bring his beloved dog Sparky back to life, only to face unintended, sometimes monstrous, consequences.
AFTER: This is the sort of film that an animation buff would watch, and then immediately wonder which company did the stop-motion animation, since there are probably under a dozen companies on the scene who could do this. Tim Burton has now directed or produced three animated spooky films, and used a different animation company each time - for "Corpse Bride" he used Laika, a company I've worked for, and this time it was MacKinnon & Saunders. If their style looks familiar, they've done quite a few commercials for Puffs tissues - and their style sort of replicates the old Rankin-Bass style from the old holiday specials, like "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Here, of course, it's used for something more spooky than Christmas-y.
This is the story of Dr. Frankenstein (again, see, it's the SCIENTIST, not the monster) transposed to middle school, where he and his classmates have to compete with science projects. At the same time, his father wants him to be more involved with sports, so an ill-fated attempt at playing baseball leads to tragic consequences for his pet dog, Sparky. This has a better message than last night's film, because nearly everyone can sympathize with the loss of a pet. However, Victor doesn't let go, he uses science to re-animate the corpse of the dog. I suppose anyone who's lost a loved pet would want to do the same.
All this is fine, until his classmates learn of the feat, starting with Edgar "E" Gore, who looks just like the classic hunchbacked Igor, and they try to replicate his experiment, with more terrible results. I'm guessing that since this is based on a short Tim Burton made long ago, this is the part of the story that was added on, because it sort of feels like this is where the story takes a right turn.
There are plenty of Easter eggs, visual and verbal shout-outs to classic horror films, like the hairdo from "Bride of Frankenstein", a teacher who resembles Vincent Price, and a giant Gamera-like turtle, named Shelley (as in Mary Shelley). But the later events in the film also serve to counteract the original message, which should have been about learning to let go. Victor does not let go, and the film ends up contradicting its own point.
Also starring the voices of Martin Short (last heard in "Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil"), Catherine O'Hara (last seen in "Wyatt Earp"), Martin Landau (last seen in "The X-Files"), Charlie Tahan, Conchata Farrell, with a cameo from Christopher Lee (last seen in "Season of the Witch").
RATING: 6 out of 10 sea monkeys
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